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The Daily Show's Jon Stewart took another shot this Wednesday at the RNC and their recent effort at "rebranding" the Republican Party. As Stewart noted, not two weeks after Reince Priebus made his big announcement, we were treated to Rep. Don Young and his "50-60 wetbacks" comment.

And after Ben Carson and Rep. Louie Gohmert's remarks this week, Stewart was asking what the hell is up with conservatives and their obsession with "animal f*cking":

He observed that prominent conservative figures such as Dr. Ben Carson and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) had recently compared same sex marriage to bestiality, causing him to wonder, “what it is with you people and the animal f*cking?”

“I don’t understand how your minds always go there,” Stewart continued. “Like, ‘then they’ll just remove the law of f*cking animals.’ Is that the only thing that has been holding you back? ‘Oh, wow, look at that goat, if only I wouldn’t get in trouble.’”

Stewart concluded his segment by pointing out that Gov. Bobby Jindal's suggestion that Republicans should stop being the "stupid party" isn't winning him any popularity contests in Louisiana.

So much for this clown going away quietly any time soon after he stepped in it on Hannity's show last week. Rather than admit that some of what came out of his mouth during his interview with Hannity might (to put it charitably) be considered offensive by wide swaths of our population in the United States, Ben Carson decided to double down instead.

Ben Carson Goes On The Offensive, Lashes Out At "Racist" Critics:

Dr. Ben Carson has pivoted from apologizing "if anybody was offended" by his anti-gay comments to attacking his critics, some of whom he says are "racist[s]" who are trying to smear him as a bigot in order to silence him.

Carson, who has been lauded by the conservative media and treated to dozens of Fox News appearances over the past few months, lashed out at his critics during an April 1 interview on The Mark Levin Show. [...]

After LGBT medical students called for Carson's replacement as the commencement speaker for the class of 2013, he attempted to claim that he hadn't been "equating" gays with pedophiles or those who engage in bestiality, while apologizing "if anybody was offended." He also said he would be willing to step down as commencement speaker.

But on Levin's show, Carson went on the offensive, saying that the criticism he has received proves that he's right that "political correctness is threatening to destroy our nation because it puts a muzzle over honest conversation." He added that "the attacks against me have been so vicious because I represent an existential threat" to his critics, who he says "take my words, misinterpret them, and try to make it seem that I'm a bigot."

After Levin claimed that Carson has been "attacked also, in many respects, because of your race" because "a lot of white liberals" don't like black conservatives, Carson replied, "Well, they're the most racist people there are. Because you know, they put you in a little category, a little box, 'you have to think this way, how could you dare come off the plantation?'"

As the Media Matters post noted, he's right there in Rush Limbaugh territory now. Bravo Dr. Carson. I didn't think it was possible for this guy to marginalize himself any further or faster than he has already with his recent media appearances, but he's managed to do it with this interview. Quite an accomplishment, given Fox was just attempting to sell him as a presidential candidate anyone should take seriously not long ago.

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I can't take watching too much of Hannity's show and try to avoid it for the most part. It gives me the same physical reaction as Jon Stewart had when he endured an hour of torture waiting to hear an apology, only to get a non-apology from him at the end of his show.

I made an exception for this segment flagged by both Media Matters and Mediaite where Hannity was called out for propping up Dr. Ben Carson, only to end up making a pariah out of him in the end.

Hannity may not have liked it, and I'm not impressed that this debacle turned into a shoutfest, but his guest Leo Terrell is exactly right that not just Hannity, but Faux News in general has spent hours of their time propping up Ben Carson as the next great savior of the GOP, even though the man doesn't have any experience in politics. They're touting him as someone the right should take seriously as a potential presidential candidate.

As I noted in the post where Jon Stewart went after Carson, Hannity didn't do him any favors with the interview he gave him and Carson probably threw whatever political aspirations he might have had down the toilet with his remarks equating gay people to pedophiles and people who want to have sex with animals. Carson also didn't do himself any favors with his follow-up interviews on MSNBC and CNN.

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UPDATE from Susie: After making a classic non-apology apology ("If I offended anyone" -- gee, ya think?), Dr. Ben Carson offered to withdraw as a graduation speaker at Johns Hopkins University:

"I think people have completely taken the wrong meaning out of what I was saying," the 61-year-old surgeon said in a telephone interview Friday. "First of all, I certainly believe gay people should have all the rights that anybody else has. What I was basically saying is that as far as marriage is concerned that has traditionally been between a man and a woman and nobody should be able to change that."

"Now perhaps the examples were not the best choice of words, and I certainly apologize if I offended anyone," he added. "But the point that I was making was that no group of individuals, whoever they are, whatever their belief systems, gets to change traditional definitions. The reason I believe the way I do, I will readily confess, is because I am a Christian who believes in The Bible."

The Bible, he explained, "...says we have an obligation to love our fellow man as ourselves, and I love everybody the same -- all homosexuals. Everybody who knows me knows I would never say anything to intentionally hurt someone."

Well! Isn't that "nice" of him? I wonder which traditional definition of marriage he's using. The one where King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines, or something else?

***

Fox's new favorite, Dr. Ben Carson, who has come under fire this week for his remarks on Sean Hannity's show where he compared gay marriage to NAMBLA and bestiality, made an appearance on Andrea Mitchell's show on MSNBC and did a really lousy job of defending them, claiming that he was "taken out of context" and wasn't actually trying to equate all of those things.

Mitchell responded by reading Carson's words right back to him and correctly noted that he was equating those things when he used in the very same sentence, gay marriage along with "things that are illegal." Carson responded by claiming that it was not his intention for his words to be taken that way. Yeah, how could all of those silly viewers have gotten the idea he was equating gay marriage with men who want to have sex with boys and bestiality just because he rattled them off one after the other?

Carson has come under fire from his colleague at Johns Hopkins which Media Matters reported on here: "Nasty, Petty, And Ill-Informed": Ben Carson's Johns Hopkins Colleague Responds To His Marriage Equality Attack :

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With the Supreme Court weighing in on the issue of gay marriage this week and such sorry pronouncements like the one we heard from Justice Samuel Alito where he called the issue "newer than cell phones or the Internet," The Daily Show's Jon Stewart took his viewers though some of the "evolving" views we've seen from our politicians over the recent weeks.

Sen. Rob Portman has finally decided to make his support for gay marriage known now that his son has come out, along with an ever increasing number of Democratic Senators whose views have 'evolved" on the matter as well, but we've still got the likes of Senators Saxby Chambliss, Marco Rubio and Fox's great hype hope for the Republican party, Dr. Ben Carson to contend with among others.

Stewart was especially harsh in his response to Carson, who said this to Sean Hannity on Fox this week:

CARSON: Marriage is between a man and a woman. [...] No group — be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in beastiality, it doesn't matter what they are...

STEWART: Yeah, let me just stop you right there. It's not, you know, whether you're having sex with another consenting adult, or a horse, or a doughnut, it's all the same. Actually, that's not fair. As Dr. Carson explained, his problem isn't with gays.

CARSON: It’s not something that’s against gays. It’s against anybody who wants to come along and change the fundamental definitions of the pillars of society.

STEWART: Oh. You think we shouldn't mess with anything that's considered a fundamental pillar of society. Ideal for an editorial cartoon. Alright, here we go.... slavery, segregation and Jim Crow.

I'd say Carson just threw whatever political aspirations he might have had on a national level down the toilet with that interview if they weren't there already.

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Reince Priebus and the RNC's recent efforts to work on the GOP's messaging and their ridiculous minority outreach program were mocked roundly on this Tuesday evening's The Daily Show by host Jon Stewart, who was, to put it mildly, not impressed with their post-election plan:

“Holy shit, let me break this strategy down, if I may,” Stewart said after running a clip of RNC Chair Reince Priebus discussing the report. “Let me break this strategy down. After pretending minorities didn’t exist proved a loser, the Republican Party has decided to physically go into these areas and engage, person to person, or, as that is known on the streets, talking. But of course, as the saying goes talk is not cheap.”

That’s where the additional paid staff come in.

“So there you go,” Stewart said. “You’re going to go into minority neighborhoods, do a little market research, then send paid spokespeople back into the minority communities with a new retargeted message. Hey, it worked for Kool cigarettes, why not, why not for another organization that has seemed indifferent to the overall health of minorities?”

Stewart followed up with some highlights from this year's CPAC 2013 and after showing the audience some of The Donald, the Wasilla Snowbilly and their new "rising star" and Fox favorite Ben Carson's speeches, wished the Republicans "good luck in 2020."

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Dr. Ben Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon who shocked Washington when he used his speech at the non-partisan National Prayer Breakfast to lecture President Barack Obama on the flat tax earlier this month, is defending his rant by insisting that he was just trying to "please" God.

As the president was forced to sit and listen, Carson had suggested that Biblical “tithing” would be a better system than the current progressive tax where wealthy Americans pay a higher rate than the poor.

During an interview that aired on Sunday, Fox News host Chris Wallace asked Carson if he had any regrets about upstaging the president and hijacking the non-partisan prayer breakfast.

"I serve God," Carson explained. "And my purpose is to please Him. And if God be for you, who can be against you?"

The neurosurgeon is retiring from his career as a surgeon in June and has said that a possible run for president was "up to God."

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The pediatric neurosurgeon who shocked Washington by using his speech at the non-partisan National Prayer Breakfast earlier this month to suggest that the Bible calls for a flat tax now says that God might tell him to run for president in 2016.

In doing so, he joins a long list of Republicans who claim to converse with the Almighty and take their marching orders from above.

As President Barack Obama sat just a few feet away, Dr. Ben Carson went on a 27-minute rant about political correctness and how Biblical "tithing" would make a better tax system. Fox News quickly heaped praise on Carson, while other conservative outlets like The Wall Street Journal and World Net Daily called for a presidential bid.

In a Sunday morning appearance on ABC News, Carson suggested that a White House run wasn't out of the question if that was what God wanted.

"It's not my intention to do that," Carson told ABC's Jonathan Karl. "But as I always say in every part of my life, I'll leave that up to God."

Karl also asked the famed doctor what he thought of President Obama "as a leader."

"I think he's a very talented politician," Carson hedged after a short pause. "There are a number of policies that I don't believe lead to the growth of our nation and don't lead to the elevation of our nation."

"But what I would like to see more often in this nation is an open and intelligent conversation, not just people casting aspersions at each other," he remarked. "I mean, it's unbelievable to me the way that people act like third graders, and if somebody doesn't agree with them, 'they're this' or 'they're that' -- and it comes from both sides and it's so infantile."